Phone Numbers

Tonight Brian and a girlfriend of his came over. Honestly most of his friends are girls. But anyways,

Some how the conversation turned to phone numbers and I learned something very funny.

In the not to distant past (I do not know when but it could not have been that long ago for Davið to remember it so well) the phone numbers were only five digits. It seemed so crazy to me.

Then, because they needed more numbers, some people got six digit numbers. So then there was two kinds of numbers, five or six digit.

This obviously was causing alot of confusion so they got an idea to fix it. Everyone would get seven digit numbers while keeping most of the number they had. If your number was five digits you added two fives in front. If your number was six digits you added one five. So all the phone numbers then became 55X-XXXX or 5XXX-XXXX.

Strange? You think? Funny at least. And I always thought it was a given that all phone numbers had seven digits.

I can only imagine the confusion this might have caused, for me at least. I was upset enough when Alberta got an extra area code. Remember when it was all 403, then they added 780 to the northern part. Sure this rarely affected me, I lived in Red Deer at the time, but for years it caused me problems. Every time I called Edmonton I would dial 403, then the number and be told this was not a number. After two or three times I would remember it was not 403 anymore.

Or when Red Deer got extra phone numbers. Everything was 34X-XXXX. Then it changed. Some people got 309-XXXX and I always thought to myself when I saw that, what a stupid phone number. Now some start with nine or what ever and I do not think there is any rule.

I know this should be an easy thing to adapt to but as I have said, I do not take change well.

One more funny phone story:

While watching Rockstar Supernova I heard the funniest song. That scary looking girl from Texas same a song with the phone number 867-5309. I laughed my head off. All phone numbers in Outlook, Saskatchewan start with 867, all of them. I am from Outlook. I never knew before this that my little town with 3,500 people, including farms, was famous enough to have a song with there phone number.